--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, May 30th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, some Senate Republicans aren't on board with the big budget bill. Why a cancer drug that costs a quarter to make is being sold for nearly $1,000 a pop. And the Scripps National Spelling Bee has a new champion in its 100th year. Can you get the winning word? But first, the Elon Musk era of Doge is coming to a close.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The White House said his off-boarding process started Wednesday night, and it caps a tumultuous few months of the tech mogul cutting his way through Washington by dramatically reducing the size of the workforce, canceling contracts, grants and leases, and attempting to shut down several federal agencies altogether.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Musk made no secret of his ambitions, as he spelled out to now-Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick back in October. How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris-Biden budget? Well, I think we can do at least $2 trillion.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah! That target was never reached. Doge does claim to have saved $175 billion so far, which amounts to 2.5% of the federal budget. But that figure has been difficult for journalists to confirm, and many outlets have identified cases of double counting and other errors in Doge's accounting.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As Musk returns to his usual day job, thinking about electric cars and getting to Mars, there are many people who were affected by his short tenure in D.C. and have no job to return to. Analysis from The New York Times puts the confirmed and planned job losses at around 280,000, largely achieved through buyouts, early retirements, and firing threats.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Many of these now ex-federal workers are struggling to figure out next steps. Washington Post reporter William Wan and his colleagues spoke with more than 30 former and current federal workers about the chaos of the last few months, the mass firings that left people feeling demoralized, devalued, and deeply anxious.
--:-- [Discussion continues with William Wan's report]
--:-- William Wan: You have people locked out of their offices suddenly, or in some cases, they are showing up to offices and having to line up. And the way they find out that whether they still have a job or not is they swipe their badge. And if their badge doesn't work, then they're out of a paycheck.
--:-- William Wan: One reports that the tactics the Doge team deployed to cut the federal workforce are unusual for both the public and private sector. Some people were fired, rehired, and then fired again. Others were locked out of their offices by police or fired for political, quote, disloyalty.
--:-- William Wan: At various points, President Trump or officials in his administration have called federal workers crooked, dishonest, or lazy. One of the most heartbreaking cases was this woman, Caitlin Cross Barnett. She was a health researcher.
--:-- William Wan: She worked for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation in Baltimore, where she used data to show that birth centers could bring down costs and emergency room visits while also contributing to higher birth weights. She had devoted her entire career to helping pregnant women These are minority women women addicted to opioids who are pregnant or from lower income helping them not die in childbirth
--:-- William Wan: In the first few weeks of Trump administration she started really fearing for her job And she had struggled on and off with depression for years, but this was something she had never experienced before.
--:-- William Wan: One says as the threats to Cross Barnett's job became more real, her mental health deteriorated. Her husband helped her check into a mental health facility, and while there, Cross Burnett killed herself.
--:-- William Wan: Experts told The Post, suicide is complicated to explain, but research points to clear contributing factors. Feelings of worthlessness, stress, lack of access to health care and insurance, and unemployment.
--:-- William Wan: Since publishing this story, one says many federal workers have reached out to offer their stories. One person said, you know, I thought I'd been struggling with this on my own, not knowing what to do, wanting for it all to end. And they just said they were so grateful to know they're not alone.
--:-- Shamita Basu: While Musk is leaving, Doge as a department is not disbanding. Asked by reporters about its future earlier this month, Musk replied, is Buddha needed for Buddhism?
--:-- Shamita Basu: Congress returns from its Memorial Day recess on Monday. And one of the top agenda items for the Republican-controlled Senate will be to work on the mega tax and spending bill that narrowly passed the House last week.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Over the break, some Republicans in the House who voted to approve the package heard from unhappy constituents in town halls, like Representative Ashley Hinson from Iowa, who was booed by people from her district.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I was also proud to vote for President Trump's one big, beautiful bill, a generational investment. President Trump supports the package. But in the Senate, there are some mixed feelings about the legislation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A number of Republicans have expressed concerns about elements of the bill, with some arguing it doesn't go far enough to reduce spending, like Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin. He is livid about the fact that this bill adds trillions of dollars to the national debt.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sahil Kapoor is a senior national politics reporter with NBC who has been keeping track of this bill's progress. It goes against everything he says he believes in. He says spending cuts need to be deeper.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: He actually wants government spending to go back to 2019 levels, pre-COVID levels, which if you consider how much, you know, retirement safety programs like Social Security and Medicare have automatically grown since then with a bunch of new people entering retirement age, that is going to be a massively difficult task. borderline impossible, I would say, politically.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky shares those concerns. And other Republican senators are questioning the depths of the Medicaid cuts in the House bill, which proposes cutting $700 billion from the program.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: That includes senators like Josh Hawley, who's very culturally conservative but has fiscally liberal instincts. He's been very vocal about the fact that he does not want to cut Medicaid benefits here.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: Still, Kapoor said that other Republicans are in favor of introducing some things, like work assessments and legal status verifications to the Medicaid program.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: The White House has been saying that revenue from tariffs will help offset the bill's impact on the deficit. It's unclear what the future of those tariffs will ultimately look like.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: Just yesterday an appeals court temporarily paused Wednesday ruling that voided many of Trump tariffs. Or to put it plainly the most sweeping tariffs are back on while the administration's appeal is being considered.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: Kapoor explained, regardless of what does or doesn't happen with tariffs, the House bill is projected to add $2.3 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: But a potential tariff freeze could impact how some Republican lawmakers see the whole economic picture. It could only matter if Republicans decide that the tariff revenue is not coming or it may not come.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: And some of them in their own heads when deciding how to vote were counting on that revenue to help offset some of the major deficit increases in this bill.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: So the short answer is it only matters if these fiscal hawks and conservative hardliners want it to matter.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: Kapoor said he expects the Senate to take its time on the legislation. Their deadline is the end of July, when the debt ceiling will need to be raised to avoid a default, which could be economically disastrous.
--:-- Sahil Kapoor: Any Senate changes would have to go back to the House for approval there. And as was the case in the House, Senate Republicans have a very narrow margin to navigate. They can only afford to lose three votes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There has been a lot of talk about the cost of prescription drugs in Washington lately, with bipartisan support for tackling this issue. Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order requesting that drug companies lower their prescription drug costs to be comparable with prices in other developed countries, an approach called most favored nation pricing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Senators Josh Hawley, a Republican, and Peter Welsh, a Democrat, introduced a bill proposing a similar idea, which would impose monetary penalties for drug companies that don't comply.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Right now, pharmaceutical companies are able to set prices and raise them however they see fit. In a recent story for ProPublica, reporter David Armstrong traced the story of Revlimid, a cancer drug that costs its creator Celgene 25 cents to make, but sells to patients for over $800 per pill.
--:-- David Armstrong: In fact, the company has raised the price of this drug 26 times since 2006, sometimes hiking it up as much as 20% within a year.
--:-- David Armstrong: In his reporting, Armstrong found that executives at Celgene banked on cancer patients being willing to pay any price for treatment.
--:-- David Armstrong: You know, if you have a drug that is going to help you fight your cancer, it puts you in remission or potentially cure your cancer, of course, you know, anybody would do whatever they could to get that paid for.
--:-- David Armstrong: Armstrong understands this firsthand. He takes this drug. He's a cancer patient himself.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And he's my guest this week on Apple News in Conversation, where he shared what he learned in his reporting about why this drug is so expensive and how we all pay when drug prices climb too high.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Patients who have different health plans with high co-pays, or large out-of-pocket costs, who can't find another way to get that covered. They've really suffered.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I've talked to patients who stopped taking the drug for a period of time because it was not financially possible for them. Or, you know, raided retirement funds, took out a mortgage, skimped on other things like groceries even.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And he says these latest efforts in Washington to regulate the drug industry are going to face challenges The problem becomes how do you make this happen What the mechanism here Medicare recently has been allowed through the Inflation Reduction Act, very limited drug negotiating powers. Ten drugs in the first year, okay?
--:-- Shamita Basu: The reaction of the pharmaceutical industry was to file lawsuit after lawsuit. There's pending litigation here. I just don't see where they're going to agree to this in any way without a fight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: To hear my full interview with David Armstrong, stick around after today's show. If you're listening in the News app, it'll play for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. First, news from Texas, where state lawmakers have just passed a bill which defines men and women by their reproductive organs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's the latest state to pass or consider laws explicitly spelling out the criteria to be considered a man or a woman. Supporters say the legislation is necessary to protect single-sex spaces and to recognize, quote, the immutable biological differences that exist.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Opponents say the bill is an attack on transgender people's identities and will cause hurt and confusion for those who have legally changed sex and hold documentation to that effect.
--:-- Shamita Basu: While the bill carries no penalties or enforcement mechanisms, it's designed to form the basis for how laws relating to sex are applied elsewhere in the state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to Switzerland, where an entire alpine village has been virtually crushed after a massive glacier collapsed, destroying everything in its path.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Thanks to predictions from geologists, authorities were able to evacuate the 300 or so people who lived in Blatton in the days before. Even sheep and cows were airlifted by helicopter.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The deluge of rock, mud, and ice descending into the valley was captured on video, and it shows the village wiped out in a matter of seconds.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Authorities suspect that the collapse was caused by high-altitude snowmelt, while a Zurich-based geologist told the Washington Post the glacier was pushed down under the growing weight of overlying rocks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, the Scripps National Spelling Bee celebrated its 100th competition last night. The winner was Faison Zaki from Texas. The favorite going into the final and the runner-up from last year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The winning word, eclaircies mom. Here is his moment of triumph.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And you can pause now if you want to have a guess. Again, the word, eclaircies mom.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, let's all of us take a deep breath. I did not help at all. Then smile. E-C-L-A-I-R-C-I-S-S-E-M-E-N-T. That is correct.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The 13-year-old collapsed to his knees in celebration and will take home $50,000 as a reward for his hard work.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, stick around for my full conversation with ProPublica's David Armstrong about drug pricing in America.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News in Conversation to find that episode. And I'll be back with the news on Monday.
